Jury Trials In Employment Cases

Jeff Polsky has responded on the issue of at will employment and we'll accept that there is good and bad in both systems.  The most important thing for employers from either the US or Canada operating in the other country is to understand the difference and make appropriate adjustments in hiring and firing practices.

Jeff's post also asked about jury trials in Canada, and specifically whether it was really true that employment claims don't go to juries and don't result in punitive damage awards.

Both jury trials and punitive damages are possible in Canada, but they are rare and limited.  We recently wrote about a jury case in British Columbia in which more than $800,000 was awarded to the terminated employee, including $573,000 in punitive damages.  From the Canadian perspective, it is an extraordinary case, both because it is so unusual to have a jury trial in the first place, and because the damage award was unusually high.